Question:
hi there! took awhile, but I’m feeling up to the effort of replying cogently. ooh…co-gently… interesting… not my style, of course, but… 
…ooh, even more interesting…being the ocd-type, i checked dictionary.com to make absolutely certain the word meant what i thought it did (it did), and the roots are fascinating to me: "[Latin cogens <co-Jens!, cogent- present participle of cogere, to force <isn't *that* interesting? : co-, co- + agere, to drive; see ag- in Indo-European Roots.] regardless…forth we go!
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – or at least about kitty. spoilered for sax, sax and violins, sax and, um…well, more sax. and maybe, if i’m lucky, for intense emotions and a bit of reference to s.a. and possibly s.i. additional warning after writing: Kitty unsheathed her claws. There’s decidedly blunt language below, cussing, no splats, and … um… hard to explain this…it’s almost like she’s trying to manipulate a response from people who might read this? She refers to it as being "b*tchy*. My apologies in advance for…I think the term is…having a personal agenda in posting this? - the dyenths coconsciousness (ps: beauty, if you read this, you’ve said that i’m decidedly not manipulative. that’s because Jen never lets Kitty out if she can possibly help it.) Look, just don’t read this if you’re not real stable. I don’t need help that badly. -Kitty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . this is just my weird, drugged take so feel free to blow it off but i think this Ethanblue dude is being a real dom (i.e., you gotta do thing his way whether you like it that way or not and if you’re "good enough" in his opinion maybe he’ll do what you want but it sounds like he’s definitely calling the shots).
heh…that sounds like my husband, actually. "good enough", as phrased here seems to strike a slightly different chord than Kitty had intended. By the way, Kitty didn’t write for the dyenths system. She wrote for herself, somethat that rarely happens here. All opinions, misconceptions, logical fallacies, etc. are entirely her own, and she’s kinda happy to have been able (allowed?) to write what *she* actually believes and how *she* feels, rather than filtering it through what’s allowable for the system to post. Don’t know if that helps at all. Actually, you ask a question a ways into this whose answer may explain a lot to you right up front: are you one of those subs who’s really the dom but likes to pretend to be the sub?
YES!!! *laughs delightedly* Having had pretty much exactly the same problem with the hubby 2 nites in a row that we’d explained having with Ethan, hubby and I kissed and made up the 3rd day (*heh*). Kitty gave up all pretense and openly topped from the bottom. It felt very clean and healthy, an exercise in self-control, and resulted in phenom sex. Will respond throughout regarding Ethanblue being a dom. Have I mentioned in previous communique’s that I’ve never been part of a bdsm "scene" in RL? I’ve never been with a "real" dom? Ever? ’cept maybe once, and it only lasted about 15 minutes…well, ok, twice, but he missed my cues and i went into a flashback, and… it just got bad from there. But that was cyber. The other guy didn’t know what to do with me when he gave an order, i said no and laughed at him. I don’t think that counts as a "real" dom. *sigh* 
so what’s the problem?
*hee* this made me laugh each time i read it. (i thought that’s what you were after and from what you say, that’s definitely how he’s acting and so i don’t understand the problem.) who cares about the "for your own good" blah blah blah. that’s so standard issue for doms. it’s better than ambien. ;-)
we didn’t know this. fwiw, ethan knows that this system has used bdsm as our primary form of self-abuse, and wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to be "hurting" kitty. He really did want to make sure she felt like she had a choice. most of kitty’s post was spoiled bad-girl pouting attitude, if that helps at all. she’s quite histrionic. it’s sorta like: blue turned her down, and she had to toss her hair over her shoulder and get back at him somehow? not being kitty now, I can say that there were a few minutes when Kitty understood what Ethan was saying, looked at him uncertainly, and tried to understand the concept of honestly wanting to have sex/make love, rather than having been told she wants to, and consequently living up to expectations. it’s like it was the first time that she really thought about whether she wanted to or not. she felt sorta fresh and new and uncertain for a bit, before she got triggered by that and reverted to form…which is when she wrote this. he sounds like a guilty dom to me. he wants (needs?) to be dom but can’t admit it even to himself bc he doesn’t want the
guilt. this got me thinking that maybe i have absolutely no idea what sex without power trips is like. In the sense that the person "in control" is the dom, I don’t have a submissive bone in my body. At least, not by preference. I’m *capable* of submitting utterly…but I think you twigged a lot more readily than I did to the fact that I don’t *want* to be submissive. I *hate* that feeling. Rather, I like a nice controlled sense of being out of control… As long as I’m the one controlling how out-of-control I feel. It’s all been mind games to make sex possible for me, because when I switch (and I switch a lot), the physical sensations change *dramatically*, and I got tired of enjoying something, then all of a sudden going into a body flashback, freaking and twisting away. I’m too scared of po ssible consequences of "being a tease" not to "take care" of my partner, too scared of losing a mate because i can’t let him make me come (long story) not to let him if he wants to, and so I had to find some way to stay one part long enough to make stuff work. if I can trigger my protectors, i can handle anything. i just used that to make sex work. heck, i probably don’t even need to respond to the rest of what you wrote. :) lemme know if i didn’t say it plain enough. i can’t always be that honest with myself about it. shame, really. you had some great lines, so i’ll continue to make occasional comments for a bit… you *really* helped me think about this in a different light, and I appreciate that a lot. or maybe the responsibility.
this is possible. he feels guilty about having hurt the kids in the system for years, and doesn’t want the *kids* to see him in a bad light. it really feels to me like he’s trying to do the right thing. oh, that was another thing…I mentioned in my first reply that Ethan was grinning ear to ear. That’s because, when you mentioned something about "so you don’t want to be the sub. good for you!" that actually answered his question about whether Kitty was able to play games without it being unhealthy for her. She can. Whether she *will* or not is entirely up to her…she may make him suffer. He’s blushing again. :) – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -so he gives the guilt to you by getting you to see him as the good guy and to question whether you’re sick (after he suggests that he thinks you are). 
~~ and he gives you the responsibility for whether the two of you will have s*x by demanding that you do it his way first (for your own good, of course so if something goes wrong he’s off the hook and he never has to deal with whether his domminess here contributed to anything). ~~~ just fwiw, i’d prefer an honest dom. it’s less messy. but if you’re into games, it might be fun to roll with a dom who won’t deal with his domminess.
heh i think there’s only one part here who doesn’t have issues with sex. and she drives the rest of us crazy when she’s with the hubby. she giggles a lot and says stuff’s "pretty". *UGH!* :) so Ethanblue has issues with sex, too. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – e snip Well, you see, we have this *terrible* problem, and I just don’t know *what* we’re going to do about fixing it. You see, Kitty still thinks that sex is "more fun" when it involves power trips. And she thinks there’s nothing wrong with that. The poor deluded dear… What she’s missing is that she can’t *do* sex without power trips. how many ppl do you know who can? i mean for real not the blah blah stuff. and i certainly don’t mean the cr*p that you describe Ethanblue as pulling bc that sounds like the antithesis of s*x without power trips. imo of course. <switch In other words, the little twerp is being "noble" and "chivalrous" and all that sentimental tripe. so far, to me, everything you’ve said paints him as a dom, not "noble" unless you’re using the word to mean "a monarch" or "a dictator". he tickles some of you (a dom thing to do) bc he decides that’s what you need (a dom reason to do it).
mmm…possibly. there’s a real sense that "tickling" is more an easy way of implying *non* threatening physical contact, because Gloriana (the main one being "tickled") …um, can’t tolerate being touched in a straightforward sense. Not even in the inside world. And Ethan worries that the other kids will be scared of the fact that he’s a male (and thus possibly a p*rp) and might find him threatening, so instead of offering hugs (which is harder for him to do anyway – he has a "rep" to protect, after all… *droll smile*), he "tickles" them. In actuality, in the inside world, they’re not really tickling each other. It’s more like playful wrestling. And they take turns at it, you know, who gets to be the ‘aggressor’. I’m … read more »
Response:
heh – i figgered i’d reply to this myself in case there were any updates I felt needed to be clarified. am in a cleaning up text mode, so i’m gonna snip a bunch of stuff. fwiw, spoiler still in effect for sax, sax & violins, rough language, and adult situations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – this is just my weird, drugged take so feel free to blow it off but i think this Ethanblue dude is being a real dom (i.e., you gotta do thing his way whether you like it that way or not and if you’re "good enough" in his opinion maybe he’ll do what you want but it sounds like he’s definitely calling the shots). heh…that sounds like my husband, actually. "good enough", as phrased here seems to strike a slightly different chord than Kitty had intended. By the way, Kitty didn’t write for the dyenths system. She wrote for herself, somethat that rarely happens here. All opinions, misconceptions, logical fallacies, etc. are entirely her own, and she’s kinda happy to have been able (allowed?) to write what *she* actually believes and how *she* feels, rather than filtering it through what’s allowable for the system to post. Don’t know if that helps at all. Actually, you ask a question a ways into this whose answer may explain a lot to you right up front: are you one of those subs who’s really the dom but likes to pretend to be the sub? YES!!!
*snickers again* - it’s so true….. *laughs delightedly* Having had pretty much exactly the same problem with the hubby 2 nites in a row that we’d explained having with Ethan, hubby and I kissed and made up the 3rd day (*heh*). Kitty gave up all pretense and openly topped from the bottom. It felt very clean and healthy, an exercise in self-control, and resulted in phenom sex.
since then we’ve gone back to non bdsm sex, but me using my fantasies the way i always do. *sigh* at least it doesn’t feel seriously slf-absv anymore. just a bit, now. Will respond throughout regarding Ethanblue being a dom. Have I mentioned in previous communique’s that I’ve never been part of a bdsm "scene" in RL? I’ve never been with a "real" dom? Ever? ’cept maybe once, and it only lasted about 15 minutes…well, ok, twice, but he missed my cues and i went into a flashback, and… it just got bad from there. But that was cyber. The other guy didn’t know what to do with me when he gave an order, i said no and laughed at him. I don’t think that counts as a "real" dom. *sigh*
to clarify: been in plenty of RL scenes. Just none where I wasn’t topping from the bottom. And none with a "real" dom. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – so what’s the problem? *hee* this made me laugh each time i read it. (i thought that’s what you were after and from what you say, that’s definitely how he’s acting and so i don’t understand the problem.) who cares about the "for your own good" blah blah blah. that’s so standard issue for doms. it’s better than ambien. ;-) we didn’t know this. fwiw, ethan knows that this system has used bdsm as our primary form of self-abuse, and wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to be "hurting" kitty. He really did want to make sure she felt like she had a choice. most of kitty’s post was spoiled bad-girl pouting attitude, if that helps at all. she’s quite histrionic. it’s sorta like: blue turned her down, and she had to toss her hair over her shoulder and get back at him somehow? not being kitty now, I can say that there were a few minutes when Kitty understood what Ethan was saying, looked at him uncertainly, and tried to understand the concept of honestly wanting to have sex/make love, rather than having been told she wants to, and consequently living up to expectations. it’s like it was the first time that she really thought about whether she wanted to or not. she felt sorta fresh and new and uncertain for a bit, before she got triggered by that and reverted to form…which is when she wrote this. he sounds like a guilty dom to me. he wants (needs?) to be dom but can’t admit it even to himself bc he doesn’t want the guilt. this got me thinking that maybe i have absolutely no idea what sex without power trips is like. In the sense that the person "in control" is the dom, I don’t have a submissive bone in my body. At least, not by preference. I’m *capable* of submitting utterly…but I think you twigged a lot more readily than I did to the fact that I don’t *want* to be submissive. I *hate* that feeling. Rather, I like a nice controlled sense of being out of control… As long as I’m the one controlling how out-of-control I feel.
Interestingly, since then a friend has acknowledged that he has occasionally played mindf*cks with me, being dommy more because it was easier to do than not to do, to which I responded as a true sub and tied myself into knots trying to make him happy. This had nothing to do with sex whatsoever, and was all done in the context of establishing "needed" boundaries for our friendship. Yes, this is the friend I post about reasonably often, when I’m having a problem with how he’s treating me. When we had our discussion where he said he likes to dom very subtly, I said something like "so does this mean that fully 3/4s of the problems I’ve had with our friendship have been because you’ve been domming me, and I didn’t like it?" He responded by saying "You phrase that as a question, when it’s clearly rhetorical?" – which is his way of saying "of course". I spent a few days thinking about this, and one thing that I found intriguing was a true, pure, core-deep feeling of utter shame at being so easily led. There’s no feeling of toxicity to the shame – it’s not necessarily a bad feeling. It just happens to be true that, because of my experiences in life, if someone wants to mess with my head, it’s quite easy. I doubt I’ll ever be able to change that. It’s sorta ok, because in this conversation with this friend (I should give him a fake name… ), I recognized for the first time that I’m now able to feel foolish, but without feeling threatened by that. I used to rip myself to shreds if I did something that made me look foolish. T got me to diss pretty good one day by saying "…and somehow you think that you don’t look foolish weighing as much as you do?". The door just swung closed easily in my head, and the question was gone from my consciousness. No sense of urgency – it was just gone. Hard to think about even now. But if I did think about it, it would probably not bother me as much. Anyways, the point was that I now know I *have* been topped by someone who wasn’t interested in "pleasing" me, and who isn’t influenced by my own tendency to dominate. I feel miserable when he does this, and don’t like anything about the experience. With the possible exception of that pure physical sensation of shame that I felt when I found out that’s what had been going on. That was intriguing. heh – maybe that whole situation is part of why i’m feeling like my old self again – which i’m not entirely sure is good for me. this feels like it was all that I wanted to say, so I’m not going to read the rest of my original reply. I’ll just sign off here… Thomas, for dyenths
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – heh – i figgered i’d reply to this myself in case there were any updates I felt needed to be clarified. am in a cleaning up text mode, so i’m gonna snip a bunch of stuff. fwiw, spoiler still in effect for sax, sax & violins, rough language, and adult situations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . this is just my weird, drugged take so feel free to blow it off but i think this Ethanblue dude is being a real dom (i.e., you gotta do thing his way whether you like it that way or not and if you’re "good enough" in his opinion maybe he’ll do what you want but it sounds like he’s definitely calling the shots). heh…that sounds like my husband, actually.
hmm. is that a bad thing or a good one? "good enough", as phrased here seems to strike a slightly different chord than Kitty had intended.
what did Kitty intend? By the way, Kitty didn’t write for the dyenths system. She wrote for herself, somethat that rarely happens here.
since someone else was complaining about Kitty’s POV, i figured she wasn’t writing for the whole system. ;-) i didn’t know how much of it felt similarly to Kitty, how much to Ethanblue and how much to Gloriana (or whomever was complaining about Kitty). All opinions, misconceptions, logical fallacies, etc. are entirely her own, and she’s kinda happy to have been able (allowed?) to write what *she* actually believes and how *she* feels, rather than filtering it through what’s allowable for the system to post.
makes sense. thanks for clarifying. Don’t know if that helps at all. Actually, you ask a question a ways into this whose answer may explain a lot to you right up front: are you one of those subs who’s really the dom but likes to pretend to be the sub? YES!!! *snickers again* - it’s so true…..
good. i wasn’t sure if i should say it but it seemed so glaring that i thought it would be ok. (i’m guessing that subtlety isn’t Kitty’s strong suit. *laughs delightedly* Having had pretty much exactly the same problem with the hubby 2 nites in a row that we’d explained having with Ethan, hubby and I kissed and made up the 3rd day (*heh*).
good. Kitty gave up all pretense and openly topped from the bottom. It felt very clean and healthy, an exercise in self-control, and resulted in phenom sex.
good. since then we’ve gone back to non bdsm sex, but me using my fantasies the way i always do. *sigh* at least it doesn’t feel seriously slf-absv anymore. just a bit, now.
i guess that’s good. fwiw, it doesn’t feel at all self-abusive to me but it’s not something i like about myself. i’d rather not have those predilections. but i do. and i don’t see that denying that or avoiding it helps anything. Will respond throughout regarding Ethanblue being a dom. Have I mentioned in previous communique’s that I’ve never been part of a bdsm "scene" in RL? I’ve never been with a "real" dom? Ever? ’cept maybe once, and it only lasted about 15 minutes…well, ok, twice, but he missed my cues and i went into a flashback, and… it just got bad from there.
sounds bad. well, as i said in my original reply, my bdsm experience is as a kid. mostly before age 12. some of it a lot before. so it’s pretty triggery for me, too. what i didn’t say was that i’ve tried to avoid in RL as an adult. but a couple of friendships have gotten messed up bc, somehow, i think i unconsciously communicated the whole scene to the guys. the occasional phone call was ok but when it took over virtually all of our time together, it was too much. i didn’t want our friendships to be just about that. (it got that way not bc i wanted it to but bc if someone’s dommy, i’m very subby and they wanted it to. and bc i’m subby, i didn’t know how to say no effectively. i really couldn’t. i tried. but they were being dom and i was being sub so i couldn’t. not unlike my therapies, unfortunately. so, like a jerk, i ended up avoiding these guys bc i didn’t want this in RL, esp bc i’m married but maybe even if i weren’t, and i didn’t know what else to do. which is really lame. handling the situations so poorly is one of the few things i’m embarrassed about.) anyway, i have some adult experiences, but not many. and i’ve talked to some ppl who are heavily into the scene, probably more to see if my memories made sense and to try to figure some of my reactions out.(i really wish some of my Ts had talked to some ppl in the scene bc then they may not have done sooooooooo many things that triggered the *&%$ outta me. but i guess that’s expecting way too much: that a T might actually try to learn something about the trauma s/he’s treating. <g hey, that grandiose sense of entitlement might make me a candidate for NPD or BPD. <g sorry, the whole topic is triggery for me and my therapy was pretty much a recreation of either the bdsm stuff or the torture/psychological/mental stuff. since that was very recent and went on for so long, that’s usually what gets triggered, not the original stuff.) But that was cyber. The other guy didn’t know what to do with me when he gave an order, i said no and laughed at him. I don’t think that counts as a "real" dom. *sigh*
lol. no, it doesn’t sound like it. to clarify: been in plenty of RL scenes. Just none where I wasn’t topping from the bottom. And none with a "real" dom.
thanks for clarifying. that makes sense bc that’s definitely how you were coming across. in headlines. snip (i thought that’s what you were after and from what you say, that’s definitely how he’s acting and so i don’t understand the problem.) who cares about the "for your own good" blah blah blah. that’s so standard issue for doms. it’s better than ambien. ;-) we didn’t know this. fwiw, ethan knows that this system has used bdsm as our primary form of self-abuse, and wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to be "hurting" kitty. He really did want to make sure she felt like she had a choice.
that’s considerate of him. i’m all for consensual s*x. most of kitty’s post was spoiled bad-girl pouting attitude, if that helps at all. she’s quite histrionic.
not Kitty. ;-) hey, but don’t sell her narcissism short here. the stunning lack of empathy for Ethanblue or the rest of your system, the strong sense of entitlement (and pouting/manipulation when she didn’t get her way), the clear manipulation (which could also be histrionic). (this being Oscar night) i think she’s a very strong contender in the narcissistic category. ;-) it’s sorta like: blue turned her down, and she had to toss her hair over her shoulder and get back at him somehow?
yes, see the lack of empathy and sense of entitlement? of course, she did have the superficial and dramatic emotions as well as the s*xual provocativeness, so i’m not trying to downplay her stellar performance in the histrionic category. <g not being kitty now, I can say that there were a few minutes when Kitty understood what Ethan was saying, looked at him uncertainly, and tried to understand the concept of honestly wanting to have sex/make love, rather than having been told she wants to, and consequently living up to expectations.
i’m glad. i’m wondering how that fits in with topping from the bottom and what she said in her post. that strongly suggested that she’s the one calling the shots (regardless of how things are portrayed) and that she’s having s*x (and how) she wants. or does she let the other person choose when but she must say how? or what? i’m trying to understand this. it’s like it was the first time that she really thought about whether she wanted to or not.
hey, progress! glad to hear it. it looks like Ethanblue’s strategy helped. i hope she continues to think about that Q. she felt sorta fresh and new and uncertain for a bit, before she got triggered by that and reverted to form…which is when she wrote this. he sounds like a guilty dom to me. he wants (needs?) to be dom but can’t admit it even to himself bc he doesn’t want the guilt. this got me thinking that maybe i have absolutely no idea what sex without power trips is like.
you aren’t alone in that. maybe other ppl here can talk about it. In the sense that the person "in control" is the dom, I don’t have a submissive bone in my body. At least, not by preference. I’m *capable* of submitting utterly…but I think you twigged a lot more readily than I did to the fact that I don’t *want* to be submissive. I *hate* that feeling. Rather, I like a nice controlled sense of being out of control… As long as I’m the one controlling how out-of-control I feel.
lol. yeah, i think that appeals to quite a few ppl. Interestingly, since then a friend has acknowledged that he has occasionally played mindf*cks with me, being dommy more because it was easier to do than not to do, to which I responded as a true sub and tied myself into knots trying to make him happy. This had nothing to do with sex whatsoever, and was all done in the context of establishing "needed" boundaries for our friendship.
snip I spent a few days thinking about this, and one thing that I found intriguing was a true, pure, core-deep feeling of utter shame at being so easily led. There’s no feeling of toxicity to the shame –
that’s good. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -it’s not necessarily a bad feeling. It just happens to be true that, because of my experiences in life, if someone wants to mess with my head,
… read more »
Response:
*hee* roflmao… will respond thruout. :) you just made my day, e. I’ll let you know what I found so funny. Never fear…
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – heh – i figgered i’d reply to this myself in case there were any updates I felt needed to be clarified. am in a cleaning up text mode, so i’m gonna snip a bunch of stuff. fwiw, spoiler still in effect for sax, sax & violins, rough language, and adult situations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . this is just my weird, drugged take so feel free to blow it off but i think this Ethanblue dude is being a real dom (i.e., you gotta do thing his way whether you like it that way or not and if you’re "good enough" in his opinion maybe he’ll do what you want but it sounds like he’s definitely calling the shots). heh…that sounds like my husband, actually. hmm. is that a bad thing or a good one?
bad. he doesn’t have the skill to make it into a headtrip for me. so it’s a mindfk with absolutely no bennies for me. just makes me feel bad about myself. "good enough", as phrased here seems to strike a slightly different chord than Kitty had intended. what did Kitty intend?
I think "good enough" was supposed to mean "healthy enough to make an informed, uninfluenced (not sure that’s the right word. can’t think of the right word, though) (uncoerced? maybe?) choice" But you picked up the sense of it, based on your responses to other stuff I wrote below: By the way, Kitty didn’t write for the dyenths system. She wrote for herself, somethat that rarely happens here. since someone else was complaining about Kitty’s POV, i figured she wasn’t writing for the whole system. ;-) i didn’t know how much of it felt similarly to Kitty, how much to Ethanblue and how much to Gloriana (or whomever was complaining about Kitty).
that’s ok. neither do I. ;) we almost never know who’s on first. Like right now, for example! All opinions, misconceptions, logical fallacies, etc. are entirely her own, and she’s kinda happy to have been able (allowed?) to write what *she* actually believes and how *she* feels, rather than filtering it through what’s allowable for the system to post. makes sense. thanks for clarifying.
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Don’t know if that helps at all. Actually, you ask a question a ways into this whose answer may explain a lot to you right up front: are you one of those subs who’s really the dom but likes to pretend to be the sub? YES!!! *snickers again* - it’s so true….. good. i wasn’t sure if i should say it but it seemed so glaring that i thought it would be ok. (i’m guessing that subtlety isn’t Kitty’s strong suit.
lol – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – *laughs delightedly* Having had pretty much exactly the same problem with the hubby 2 nites in a row that we’d explained having with Ethan, hubby and I kissed and made up the 3rd day (*heh*). good. Kitty gave up all pretense and openly topped from the bottom. It felt very clean and healthy, an exercise in self-control, and resulted in phenom sex. good. since then we’ve gone back to non bdsm sex, but me using my fantasies the way i always do. *sigh* at least it doesn’t feel seriously slf-absv anymore. just a bit, now. i guess that’s good. fwiw, it doesn’t feel at all self-abusive to me but it’s not something i like about myself. i’d rather not have those predilections. but i do. and i don’t see that denying that or avoiding it helps anything.
that seems very similar to the conclusions I usually get to. I kinda see it as the neural pathways being so well-worn (this goes to something you write about in just a bit) that it’s easier to use than not to use, for one thing, and if I manage not to use those neural pathways, *then* I have to struggle to find another pathway that doesn’t stumble across flashback memories. …which radically changes the physical sensations I experience, usually in very bad ways, that I can only "fix" – as in overcome enough to keep going – by using the nice, easy, slightly deleterious, 8 lane neural superhighway that I’ve been expending energy to *ignore*. *sigh* – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Will respond throughout regarding Ethanblue being a dom. Have I mentioned in previous communique’s that I’ve never been part of a bdsm "scene" in RL? I’ve never been with a "real" dom? Ever? ’cept maybe once, and it only lasted about 15 minutes…well, ok, twice, but he missed my cues and i went into a flashback, and… it just got bad from there. sounds bad. well, as i said in my original reply, my bdsm experience is as a kid. mostly before age 12. some of it a lot before. so it’s pretty triggery for me, too. what i didn’t say was that i’ve tried to avoid in RL as an adult. but a couple of friendships have gotten messed up bc, somehow, i think i unconsciously communicated the whole scene to the guys. the occasional phone call was ok but when it took over virtually all of our time together, it was too much. i didn’t want our friendships to be just about that. (it got that way not bc i wanted it to but bc if someone’s dommy, i’m very subby and they wanted it to. and bc i’m subby, i didn’t know how to say no effectively. i really couldn’t. i tried. but they were being dom and i was being sub so i couldn’t. not unlike my therapies, unfortunately. so, like a jerk, i ended up avoiding these guys bc i didn’t want this in RL, esp bc i’m married but maybe even if i weren’t, and i didn’t know what else to do. which is really lame. handling the situations so poorly is one of the few things i’m embarrassed about.)
I recalled your mentioning this in an exchange on the topic we had probably about a year ago, actually. It comes to mind for me from time to time, most especially lately, as I’ve been struggling to get a grasp on the situation with my good friend George. *heh* (what’s funnier is that in "George"’s and my parlance, "good friend" means "a$$hole". as in "You’re such a good friend…" with a fond/nasty smile ;) ) anyway, i have some adult experiences, but not many. and i’ve talked to some ppl who are heavily into the scene, probably more to see if my memories made sense and to try to figure some of my reactions out.(i really wish some of my Ts had talked to some ppl in the scene bc then they may not have done sooooooooo many things that triggered the *&%$ outta me.
I’m beginning to understand your issues with thpy a bit more, I think. They’ve confused me for a bit. And I’m sorry that you’ve had such rotten experiences with Ts. I feel *quite* fortunate that my T is *sooooo* …um… "liberal" in his attitudes regarding sex. His original training was as a sex thpst. Though he hasn’t divulged anything personal, he gets along far too well with Kitty not to have *some* idea what he’s talking about when it comes to bdsm. That, and the fact that he’s offered me the name of a leatherworker who specializes in…um…well…er… He just happens to know this person – the friend of a client, I believe. My T tracks useful ppl so that he can give names to clients. Clearly I’m not trying to imply that I think my T has any other reason to know the name/# of this person. All I *am* trying to say, honest, is that my T "gets" it. and sometimes acts dommy with me. but something (his pretty face, he thinks) keeps me going back to him, and we’ve worked out every instance of his domminess triggering me. transference work is big with him, cuz he’s a Freudian psychologist. it’s truly terrible to confront him about something he said that was inappropriate (Let’s see: he might…1. laugh at me and deny my reality; 2. get mad at me, with many possible bad repercussions to follow; 3. take this as an opportunity to act worse, since I’ve acknowledged what he’s done; 4. make me feel foolish for thinking he meant anything bad; 5. … the list goes on) (but he *also* might listen attentively, and apologize if he were wrong. which he’s done. on several occasions.) (ok, many occasions. he’s wrong a lot. :) ), but it’s been worth it for me to fix it with him, because it makes me feel safer in the world. It helps me learn healthy conflict resolution, too. And gives me a sense of being important (and brave!) enough to apologize to. (it helps that he sounds sincere.) but i guess that’s expecting way too much: that a T might actually try to learn something about the trauma s/he’s treating. <g hey, that grandiose sense of entitlement might make me a candidate for NPD or
BPD. <g heh sorry, the whole topic is triggery for me and my therapy was pretty much a recreation of either the bdsm stuff or the torture/psychological/mental stuff. since that was very recent and went on for so long, that’s usually what gets triggered, not the original stuff.)
sorry if this is stirring up bad memories. But that was cyber. The other guy didn’t know what to do with me when he gave an order, i said no and laughed at him. I don’t think that counts as a "real" dom. *sigh* lol. no, it doesn’t sound like it.
somehow i knew you’d get it. ;) – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – to clarify: been in plenty of RL scenes. Just none where I wasn’t topping from the bottom. And none with a "real" dom. thanks for clarifying. that makes sense bc
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Response:
btw our discussions are causing some PTSD for me (flashbacks, etc.). although they aren’t particularly intense, they’re almost constant. so i may drop the conversation suddenly. if so, it’s me, not yous. *hee* roflmao…
good. will respond thruout. :) you just made my day, e. I’ll let you know what I found so funny. Never fear…
good. "who_me?" wrote :
fwiw, spoiler still in effect for sax, sax & violins, rough language, and adult situations. and child situations (SA) – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . this is just my weird, drugged take so feel free to blow it off but i think this Ethanblue dude is being a real dom (i.e., you gotta do thing his way whether you like it that way or not and if you’re "good enough" in his opinion maybe he’ll do what you want but it sounds like he’s definitely calling the shots). heh…that sounds like my husband, actually. hmm. is that a bad thing or a good one? bad. he doesn’t have the skill to make it into a headtrip for me. so it’s a mindfk with absolutely no bennies for me. just makes me feel bad about myself.
ouch! but i’m confused bc below you (or Kitty) said: – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -[Kitty] usually is in control of 99% of the action. hubby pretty much acts as (ooh! i know what you’re gonna say to this one!!!) an extension of Kitty’s imagination. He’s in charge of timing and application. He makes _feeble_ efforts at talking dommy, but I supply what I need inside my head, so his efforts are … superfluous… <Kitty switched in. Could you tell? It helps having had the same partner for 10 years. I’ve trained him reasonably well by now… He needn’t stretch his imagination far. We’ve gotten fairly well established in our routine. I just give him clues regarding what I’m interested in, then hints along the way as he needs them. It helps having a part who can talk while another part can "stay in the mood", too. I hope this helps your understanding.
that doesn’t sound like he’s being real dom or that he’s calling the shots. snip – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – [One night] Kitty gave up all pretense and openly topped from the bottom. It felt very clean and healthy, an exercise in self-control, and resulted in phenom sex. good. since then we’ve gone back to non bdsm sex, but me using my fantasies the way i always do. *sigh* at least it doesn’t feel seriously slf-absv anymore. just a bit, now. i guess that’s good. fwiw, it doesn’t feel at all self-abusive to me but it’s not something i like about myself. i’d rather not have those predilections. but i do. and i don’t see that denying that or avoiding it helps anything. that seems very similar to the conclusions I usually get to. I kinda see it as the neural pathways being so well-worn (this goes to something you write about in just a bit) that it’s easier to use than not to use, for one thing, and if I manage not to use those neural pathways, *then* I have to struggle to find another pathway that doesn’t stumble across flashback memories
or for me that gets me off at all. i rarely find one. so i either give up bc of lack of interest. or switch to the bdsm stuff. or keep going until i’m in physical pain bc i’ve been trying for so long. the latter two work. too well. (btw, i’ve talked to at least a couple of other ppl here over the years with the same responses. either do the sm stuff up front, give up, or keep trying other stuff until they rub themselves raw or otherwise are in pain, at which point they can get off.) . …which radically changes the physical sensations I experience, usually in very bad ways, that I can only "fix" – as in overcome enough to keep going – by using the nice, easy, slightly deleterious, 8 lane neural superhighway that I’ve been expending energy to *ignore*. *sigh*
i can relate. it’s not like i haven’t tried to learn other ways or stop using sm stuff. i’ve even given up completely on s*x. but i don’t think that’s a particularly good solution either. snip – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – well, as i said in my original reply, my bdsm experience is as a kid. mostly before age 10. some (probably most) of it a lot before (about age 16 mos through age 9 or 10). so it’s pretty triggery for me, too. what i didn’t say was that i’ve tried to avoid in RL as an adult. but a couple of friendships have gotten messed up bc, somehow, i think i unconsciously communicated the whole scene to the guys. . . . so, like a jerk, i ended up avoiding these guys bc i didn’t want this in RL, esp bc i’m married but maybe even if i weren’t, and i didn’t know what else to do. which is really lame. . . . I recalled your mentioning this in an exchange on the topic we had probably about a year ago, actually. It comes to mind for me from time to time, most especially lately, as I’ve been struggling to get a grasp on the situation with my good friend George. *heh* (what’s funnier is that in "George"’s and my parlance, "good friend" means "a$$hole". as in "You’re such a good friend…" with a fond/nasty smile ;) )
lol. that is ironic. or is it? ;-) anyway, i have some adult experiences, but not many. and i’ve talked to some ppl who are heavily into the scene, probably more to see if my memories made sense and to try to figure some of my reactions out. (i really wish some of my Ts had talked to some ppl in the scene bc then they may not have done sooooooooo many things that triggered the *&%$ outta me. I’m beginning to understand your issues with thpy a bit more, I think. They’ve confused me for a bit.
you and all my Ts. ;-) and probably most of the ppl i’ve talked to about it. which i kind of understand but kind of don’t. i grew up in another culture where things were very different in some ways than in the dominant (heh) american culture. and some things there have very different meanings. some of those meanings make therapy itself a very triggery, threatening place. i do understand why it can be difficult to comprehend another culture more than superficially but i don’t understand why so many ppl (Ts and others) have such a hard time comprehending that there is a difference and that difference might make some things that are reassuring or helpful to most americans very harmful and triggering to me (and others from that subculture). it seems like a duh thing to me. but not to the Ts i’ve talked to and really not to anyone who hasn’t had at least some bdsm experience. And I’m sorry that you’ve had such rotten experiences with Ts.
why are you sorry? you aren’t a T are you? ;-) I feel *quite* fortunate that my T is *sooooo* …um… "liberal" in his attitudes regarding sex. His original training was as a sex thpst. Though he hasn’t divulged anything personal, he gets along far too well with Kitty not to have *some* idea what he’s talking about when it comes to bdsm. That, and the fact that he’s offered me the name of a leatherworker who specializes in…um…well…er… He just happens to know this person – the friend of a client, I believe. My T tracks useful ppl so that he can give names to clients.
that’s good. Clearly I’m not trying to imply that I think my T has any other reason to know the name/# of this person.
you sound a bit defensive about that. ;-) All I *am* trying to say, honest, is that my T "gets" it.
lol. ok, more than a bit defensive. ;-) seriously, that’s all i thought. until you started explaining. and explaining. ;-) "thou doth protest too much" ;-) and sometimes acts dommy with me. but something (his pretty face, he thinks) keeps me going back to him,
lol and we’ve worked out every instance of his domminess triggering me. transference work is big with him, cuz he’s a Freudian psychologist.
one of mine was Freudian. the first one thought he was, although he called himself "eclectic." in his case, i think that meant that he knew very little about a lot of schools. ;-) but he was supposedly mostly psychodynamic. it’s sad when someone with a BS and some grad units in psychology (me) knows a LOT more about the topic (both factually and in application) than the professional one is paying for hir "expertise". but the next two Ts knew a lot, although i was amazed at how much counter-transference they missed and how much they missed about the interplay between the transference and CT. OTOH, they were often better at catching the transference than i was. or at least certain aspects of it. so if they wouldn’t have been so dommy and if the framework itself weren’t so d*mn triggery and harmful (both bc of the bdsm and bc of the stuff i think of as the "bad stuff" in my childhood, which i don’t think we’ve talked about) they probably would have been helpful Ts. the next one wasn’t good and i couldn’t tell with the last one bc we didn’t talk much. it’s truly terrible to confront him about something he said that was inappropriate (Let’s see: he might…1. laugh at me and deny my reality;
i’d then try to figure out the CT and why it was happening right then. but that’s me. not suggesting you do that. what would you have done if he did that? what would that trigger, if anything? 2. get mad at me, with many possible bad repercussions to follow;
i can see how that would be threatening, given your father. i’d sometimes blurt out "OMG. please don’t kill me" when i’d done something like accidentally interrupt or say "i’m sorry" (bc T had asked me not to apologize) or things. so i guess that was an issue for me, too. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -3. take
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